


There But for the Grace

by thisaestus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Fantasizing, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-28
Updated: 2012-09-28
Packaged: 2017-11-15 04:44:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/523280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisaestus/pseuds/thisaestus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His was the fifty-fifty bet that Lord Voldemort didn’t take, and this is how it turned out instead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There But for the Grace

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 hp_nextgen_fest prompt _#81: Neville/Teddy with past Remus/Neville (either unrequited or consummated is fine) : Professor Longbottom sees the father in the son and his desire is reawakened. Feel free to make it a little bit twisted (young Neville or young Teddy) if you so desire._
> 
> I tried so hard to get Neville to do smexxy things with Lupin OR his son, but neither would cooperate! Instead, this moody thing happened.

This is the way it almost went: a cool July dawn, the promise of warmth held fast on the morning breeze that finds its way through the window that has been left open, just in case. He hurries downstairs the minute he is dressed, fresh and happy although he has scarcely slept. The doors to the kitchen garden are wide open, and he bends down so Gran can brush his cheek with a kiss. Uncle Algie is fit to burst over something but refuses to say what, just chuckles occasionally into his eggs. It seems they have scarcely sat down before a long-eared owl appears out of nowhere, thrusting out its foot imperiously, and he finally unrolls his Hogwarts letter.

He jumps up and hugs them both, laughing in excitement and pride as he waves the letter around. Almost as excited as he is, Uncle Algie cancels a clever concealment charm and reveals the source of his delight. A beautiful juvenile barn owl, born of his very favorite from Uncle Algie’s hobby mews, blinks sleepily at him from a large cage. Gran rolls her eyes indulgently and thrusts a parcel at him, which turns out to be an illustrated guide to the care of owls. He will pore tirelessly over this volume, which will be held together by more than one preservation charm and binding spell by the time he gives it a place of honor in the main offices of his owl preserve. But for now, it is time to wait impatiently for the afternoon.

Their quidditch-themed joint birthday party with favors charmed to change to the colors of one’s favorite team has ensured their popularity even before they board the Hogwarts Express. After the guests leave, Harry’s godfather Sirius and Uncle Remus cancel the childproofing protective charms on their souvenir brooms and they rise up into the sky. Harry’s dad sputters out his butterbeer in surprised laughter when he sees them, drawing the attention of Gran and Harry’s mum, who leap to their feet in protest. After a fierce conference the men agree to keep an eagle eye, wands at the ready, while they swoop around, and the women cluck protectively as they lament how quickly their babies have grown. Later, as the dusk deepens rapidly, he and Harry collapse into the grass and watch the stars and fireflies while they talk to each other about what Hogwarts will be like. The voices of the grownups fade into dull murmurs, and he vaguely remembers being cradled against the chest of Harry’s dad as they spin in the floo. He is carried up the stairs, rousing slightly as he is placed in the center of his bed and the covers drawn up to his chin.

A few weeks later, the sorting hat flops comfortably over his eyes like an old friend, proclaiming to the Great Hall that for someone who vanquished You-Know-Who as only an infant, there can be no better place than GRYFFINDORRRRRRRRRRR and the hall erupts in cheers. The headmaster beams at him from the Head Table, and a grinning Harry joins him at the table only moments later.

Their Hogwarts years are blissful, as befits the golden sons of venerated war heroes. Harry’s parents have always welcomed him as their own, and Sirius and Remus, always full of mischief, take him under their wing. Between the wards at Hogwarts and the vigilance of Harry’s family and his own, it is easy to avoid the tabloid reporters eager for the scoop of a bad potions grade or his first girlfriend (a blushing, painfully embarrassed Ginevra Weasley sending him a singing valentine does not make her his girlfriend, thank you very much!) and forget that world even exists. Harry becomes seeker their third year, and he joins him the next as a chaser. Harry’s love of flying gives way to a brilliant quidditch career, and his leads him to become a renowned owl expert, with buyers paying premium prices the world over and breeders and fanciers consulting him on any number of issues.

It is an easy, happy life, and nothing less than the vanquisher of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named deserves for his service to the wizarding world and the loss of his parents at such a tender age.

Let us be thankful, then, that he has never had reason to suspect, cause to discover that but for a fifty-fifty chance brought about by the desperation, inventiveness, and eventual success of a heavily pregnant red-haired witch in the heat of summer (laundry, herbs, spicy foods, and a failed attempt at sex [“I’m not putting my penis in there!” he’d shrieked. "It’ll poke him in the head and scar him for life"!]), this is the way it went instead:

The morning of his eleventh birthday, the sun rose weakly in the sky, not yet strong enough to burn off the chill left from the rain the night before. He crept out of bed before the sun was even up, looking longingly out the window. That was where Tufty finds him, tutting anxiously and leading him away with admonishments about catching cold. She shuts the window firmly, and he is bundled into a scratchy jumper. He trudges downstairs. Sometimes on special occasions they eat in the garden, where they have a small table for the two of them. But everything is still wet from the night before and that big of a drying charm is too much of a bother, so breakfast is set in the small morning room off the kitchen—no sense making a mess for just the two of them. He takes a bite of toast, pushes his eggs around the plate, knocks over his pumpkin juice.

His nervousness makes Gran snap, and despite himself, he confesses his fear that he will not receive his Hogwarts letter. “Nonsense,” she barks at him. “Your parents were both fine wizards, and even if you don’t get sorted into Gryffindor, you’re sure to be a fine wizard in your own right.” She stands, marking an end to breakfast. Tufty scurries to clear the table.

They hurry, because visiting hours start at nine, and after ten o’clock potions, his parents won’t be fit for company until much later. Not that they are ever really fit for company, he muses as they step into the floo. He is shocked when they reach the ward, and sees that there are several balloons and a small happy birthday banner affixed to the doorway of his parents’ room. Two longtime attendants bring over a small cake and fuss over him, exclaiming to Gran that they can’t believe he’ll be off to Hogwarts this year. He forces himself not to imagine how different it would all be if his parents were all right. They’d be getting the house ready for a birthday party or helping him pick out a name for his new owl. He glances at his dad, who is staring vacantly at the ceiling. His mother is petting a soft blanket that someone has given her.

All of a sudden her eyes go wide and she shrieks as she stares at a point behind his head. Everyone freezes, then turns in unison. A tawny owl is winging down the hallway, barreling straight for them. His heart leaps in his throat as the owl reaches him, holds out his leg, and allows him to peel off the letter before flying off as quickly as it appeared. The ward is a cacophony of noises—his mother’s shrieks have spurred competing ones from other patients. A harried looking mediwizard and healer rush into the wing, where the attendants are shouting to make themselves heard over the confusion.

“—owl even get in here, I’d like to know!”

“—whole place sanitized. Do you know how difficult—”

“—calm the patients down. Good thing it’s almost time for their potions.”

**************  
That night at dinner, Gran pushes a small box at him, and he opens it up to reveal a toad. His heart sinks. No one his age will be showing up to Hogwarts with a toad. The girls will have cuddly cats or the boys fierce old tom kneazles—the luckiest will have owls. He has been reading about owls for months, daydreaming that his Hogwarts gift will be a handsome eagle owl or a lovely barn owl with a creamy, heart-shaped face. His eyes smart, and his voice croaks as he begins to thank Gran. He clears his throat, blinks his eyes, and pecks her on the cheek in thanks. They are not given to unseemly displays of affection, and he is sure she is horrified, but for a moment he is sure he sees her face soften.

Uncle Algie passes him over a thick parcel that turns out to be A Complete Guide to Magical Herbs and Plants by Amaranth Goldenrod and cancels a concealing charm that turns out to be hiding some sort of plant. Gran nods approvingly (“practical hobby for a young man”) and she and Uncle Algie reminisce about wartime austerity gardens. He strokes a finger down the toad’s back as he flips slowly through the book.

Weeks later, the sorting hat is placed on his head. To his dismay it immediately and cheerfully starts rattling off things like “find the family you’ve never had,” “support and encouragement,” and “lifelong friends.” He panics, tells the hat his most important family is his grandmother, and all the friends in Hufflepuff won’t make up for the disappointment he’ll meet if he isn’t sorted into Gryffindor. The hat sighs and sends him to the lion’s den.

He’s apparently learned a lot from Uncle Algie’s book, as it turns out his best subject is herbology. He lingers after class to ask a question and Professor Sprout sighs at him and says, “It’s such a pity you weren’t sorted into my house.” He indignantly thinks his head of house can turn into a cat, but he looks out the glass wall of the greenhouse at the easy camaraderie of the Hufflepuffs laughing as they make their way back to the castle together and thinks she probably has a point.

At the end of the year, he is stunned when he’s awarded house points, breaking the tie and earning Gryffindor the house cup. As the hall turns red and gold and his back is pounded in celebration by his classmates, he basks in the thought that he truly is a Gryffindor, that it is his bravery that his won his whole house the cup. It is only years later that he realizes how much easier it was to turn the entire episode into some sort of morality lesson than deal with the ramifications of punishing Harry and his friends for attacking a housemate and breaking about a hundred school rules.

It is only under Professor Sprout’s gentle guidance and nurturing that he has any success. Professor Snape reduces him to a gibbering mess and his head of house intimidates him to the point of constant failure. Professor Lockheart is so flashy and charismatic that it makes him retreat into himself. But the next year, he is hopeful when he sees Professor Lupin at the head table. He is kind, with warm brown eyes, and his patched clothes are much less intimidating to try to live up to than the expensive cut of Lockheart’s custom robes.

It feels like the worst kind of betrayal when he is singled out to expose his greatest fear before all of his classmates. The professor looks at him kindly as he stammers his secret, and when it is out in the open, he chuckles and the class erupts in laughter. He wants to die of shame, but Snape in his grandmother’s clothes when he manages to conquer the boggart is the best thing to happen to Gryffindor in years. By dinnertime the story has spread, and he is the most talked-about student in school. Even sixth years come up to him and clap him on the shoulder.

He is still reveling in his unexpected popularity when he walks into potions class the next day. The malice glittering in Professor Snape’s eyes nearly takes his breath away, and he promptly fumbles the entire ginger root he is slicing into his cauldron. It is a matter of mere seconds before the potion gurgles up, spilling over the sides and rushing over the worktable onto the floor, showing no signs of stopping. Snape smirks at him, then descends, and with a lazy flick of his wand vanishes the entire thing like it never happened. He is informed his reckless, dangerous actions and lack of concern for his classmates has earned him detention for a month.

It is nearly eleven o’clock when he leaves the potions classroom, arms aching and hands red from scrubbing cauldrons. The castle at this time of night is nearly silent but for the murmur of portraits, and the hall is filled with long shadows that reach out menacingly. His heart nearly leaps out of his chest when he rounds a corner and a tall figure steps out from nowhere, clasping his arm. He wants to scream, but his breath is caught in his throat.

There is a warm chuckle, and he exhales heavily as the familiar face of Professor Lupin comes into focus. The professor gives his arm a manly squeeze, and apologizes if he gave him a fright. He offers to escort him back to Gryffindor tower, explaining on the way that he has told the headmaster about what happened in his class with the boggart and Snape’s month long detention. The headmaster has agreed that the punishment is excessive, but it is true that he disrupted class, ruined expensive ingredients, and posed risk to his classmates. The detentions stand, but are reduced to the rest of the week, and will be served with Professor Lupin. His knees are weak with relief, and as the professor smiles benignly down at him, he feels his stomach flutter.

Over the next six nights, he is treated to bar after bar of chocolate while Professor Lupin discusses defensive spells and theories with him. Once, when the professor passes him a square of chocolate, their fingers accidentally brush and Neville blushes to the roots of his hair. When enough time has passed each night, Professor Lupin winks at him at sends him along his way, urging him not to tell anyone that these detentions aren’t strictly a punishment. He finds himself opening up, and the fifth night finds the courage to blurt out his questions about his parents and the curse that made them the way they are. He only knows its name because he overheard a careless healer discussing it their conditions with a new trainee once when he was eleven.

It is inevitable, looking back, that he developed a raging crush on the professor. When he is older, he will calmly rationalize his fantasies as the desperation of an ostracized boy forced to wait outside his common room in humiliation for losing the house passwords. He will conclude it is only natural that he would have turned to Lupin for approval and guidance and kindness in the absence of a proper relationship with his own father. Before he is overtaken with embarrassment, he is relieved that no matter how he used the images in Seamus’s dirty magazines as wank fodder for his fantasies about the professor, his painful shyness and strict upbringing made actually approaching him impossible. If he were a different sort of Gryffindor, perhaps he actually would have brushed up against the professor, stayed behind after class for private tutoring instead, any of a zillion scenarios he imagines nightly with the curtains drawn around his bed.

At the end of the year, when it comes out that Lupin was a werewolf the whole time, he comes harder than he ever has, and immediately feels guilty.

***********************************

After that year, there are typical schoolboy crushes. He takes Ginny Weasley to the Yule Ball. He imagines what (he hopes) Parvati and Lavender get up to in the dormitory when Hermione is at the library. Daphne Greengrass scowls at him when he accidentally knocks into her in the hallway, and for a good month he uses the fantasy of what would have happened if he’d accidentally landed on top of her. The warm brown eyes of the professor vanish from his periphery.

Shockingly, he grows into the absolute essence of a Gryffindor. He infiltrates the Ministry on a secret mission and helps Harry fight Death Eaters, many of whom are arrested and imprisoned. When Harry is gone, he takes up his mantle and leads a secret resistance movement under the nose of Death Eaters and sacrifices himself as often as necessary to protect others. The very own sword of Godric Gryffindor himself presents itself to him in a crucial moment of the final battle. He is a war hero before he is even twenty. Girls find him attractive, boys want to be his friend. There are parties, accolades, Ministry functions. His grandmother couldn’t be prouder.

He serves a brief stint as an Auror, but when Professor Sprout writes to let him know she is retiring and has he ever thought maybe, just maybe—

Reactions are varied. Some people are shocked that he would give up such career prospects to languish at Hogwarts, where there are hardly any marriage prospects, and he has never shown any particular interest or fondness for children. Others seem enchanted by the idea that after sacrificing so much (his parents, his schooling, his childhood) because of Voldemort, it is only right that he should be able to enjoy himself and concentrate on his true passion—herbology. Surprisingly, Gran is one of the latter, and it means more to him than her pride in his wartime accomplishments ever did.

*********************************

He is fussing over a patch of firebloom St. Mungo’s contracts him to supply when an owl startles him. It is a letter from Harry, cheerful as always, asking how Hogwarts is and to ask him to keep an eye out for his godson, who will be arriving in a few days. It is with a start that he realizes this is the year Professor Lupin’s orphan son will be coming to Hogwarts. He has not seen Teddy in years although the boy is often with Harry and his family. Harry or Ron or Hermione invite him to various gatherings of the large Weasley clan, but it isn’t often these days that he manages to tear himself away from the castle or the greenhouses. And Teddy is usually there, whose grandmother looks awfully like her older sister. Although he knows it’s wrong, he can scarcely stand to be around her. Some wounds never fully heal.

Huh. He sets down a trowel and rocks back on his heels, wiping his hands carefully on his trousers. He resolves to look out for the lad, offer him a bit of friendship and guidance. It’s the least he can do to pay back his old dad for the kindness he showed him. (And if a faint pink tinges his cheeks at this memory of his old professor, he tamps it firmly down. He is an adult now, after all, and that old schoolboy crush is a lifetime beyond him.)

***********************

He looks over the assembled children and for the life of him can’t pick young Lupin out of the crowd until his name is called. It is with some relief that he discovers the boy who clambers up on the stool looks nothing like either his father or Bellatrix Black. He peers down from the Head Table with some interest as the hat shouts out—Hufflepuff ? He can’t fathom why the son of two Order members, war heroes at that, wasn’t sorted into Gryffindor. He and Harry had been, after all. He watches closely as Lupin makes his way to the Hufflepuff table. He doesn’t seem to be too upset—in fact, he is giving his new housemates a broad smile. Still, he’ll make sure things are okay.

To that end, he asks Teddy to stay behind after class a couple weeks later. It is a Wednesday afternoon, and he knows for a fact it’s the last lesson the Hufflepuffs have that day, which means he can take his time and make sure the boy is all right. Teddy stands curiously but patiently in front of him, which means that at least this far he isn’t nervous about being caught out for some misdeed or prank.

He ushers him into a small office he maintains off of the greenhouses. It isn’t his official office—that one is in the castle, much larger and more severe. This is where he goes to relax when he’s not ready to head back to his rooms, or when he advises his favorite NEWT students or wants to catch a nap between lessons. It is small and cramped, scarcely large enough for the squashy sofa and comfortable, ratty plaid armchairs that Sprout left behind. He gestures and Teddy sits on one chair. He takes the other.

He asks how he’s settling into Hufflepuff. Teddy replies enthusiastically.

He pries as delicately as he knows how. “I’m sure your family was very proud of you.”

“Oh, sure!” Teddy replies. “Uncle Harry said it was dead boring that all the Potters and Weasleys always go to Gryffindor and he was glad I was shaking it up, and Gran was happy I took after my mother, and not the rest of her family.”

He hadn’t known Tonks had been a Hufflepuff.

“And you’re happy you were sorted there?”

He isn’t sure why he is asking. There’s nothing to be done for it after the fact, even if he were miserable.

But he doesn’t look miserable. Lupin enthusiastically tells him how he glad he is to be in the same house his mother was, and how being a badger is like having his very own family, how he has so many friends and everyone is so nice and helpful.

A traitorous thought comes out of nowhere, telling him this is how happy he could have been as a young boy, if only he’d listened to the hat. He tamps it down firmly, instead tuning out Lupin as he talks and finding it so strange that both of their mothers were stolen from them by the same woman, that he is attempting to provide the same role to Teddy as Professor Lupin once had to him.

He ends their meeting, assured that the boy is happy and adjusting well. He arranges a time a month in the future for another meeting. If Teddy looks surprised, he accepts it with good grace and is on his way. He scribbles a note to Harry, assuring him his godson is adjusting, and happy.

*****************

The more he thinks about the similarities in their lives, the more he tries to puzzle it out. He had been so withdrawn and unhappy in his own childhood, but under such similar circumstances, Teddy is to all appearances a bright, popular boy. His ability to stripe his hair yellow and black for Quidditch matches earns him the affection of the entire Hufflepuff house, and he is embraced by them almost as a mascot.

Although the boy is not particularly skilled at herbology, he occasionally asks him to stay after class and assist him with some project or other. Lupin always agrees, although the older they get the more his friends grumble at this intrusion on his time, practically the equivalent of a detention the way they reason. Lupin grows into a good looking boy. They take tea and chat intermittently, but never with the frequency of his first year. He tries to repay the kindness Professor Lupin once showed to him, but the boy doesn’t seem to need it. He is always polite, if a little perplexed.

He often loses himself in thought about the war and his childhood and the loss and triumph when he looks at him. After class on one such occasion, he overhears Martin Wellington, who clearly doesn’t realize the particular acoustics of the greenhouses. “—care what he did in the war. Maybe it messed him up. It’s just creepy, I tell you! Always staring at you, asking you to stay behind after class. . .” His blood freezes and he is mortified at the insinuation of what he has just heard.

Young Lupin laughs. “Don’t be a prat. He was a friend of my father’s, I think. And he’s a good friend of my godfather. I think he asked him to keep an eye on me. And it doesn’t hurt my marks, either. . .”

Wellington acquiesces, and the pair head to the castle, where dinner will be served shortly.

Neville retreats into his office, sits heavily on the sofa. After awhile, he lifts his head from his hands and thinks he will head into Hogsmeade. He doesn’t drink often, but he thinks he needs one now. He remembers that Hannah Abbot has just taken over the Three Broomsticks from Madam Rosmerta. It will be nice to see a friendly face. He stands up, pulls on his cloak.


End file.
